Zimbabwe – The Mad Hatters Tea Party
The Mad Hatters Tea Party
Events taking place here in Zimbabwe are so outrageous that it seems
sometimes to be just like the mad hatters tea party in Alice in Wonderland.
In this case the mad hatter of course would be our beloved leader. The rest
of us are uncomfortable guests.
Since last Sunday we have seen all those arrested discharged from custody -
they went back to Court and were faced with a situation where the
Prosecutors and Magistrates simply failed to turn up and the Police told the
accused, “you can go home”! This has happened in Bulawayo where on Wednesday the authorities arrested 15 people for “planning an illegal rally”. They too
were released without charge 24 hours later. In Mutare 75 people detained on
similar grounds were also released without charge.
There have been further demonstrations and some violence in various centers
and where people have been arrested on those occasions they have been beaten
in custody in a similar fashion to the 50 MDC and other activists arrested
last Sunday.
Then on Friday the Police and Army arrived at the home of the man shot dead
last Sunday, took his father, who was alone at the time, into custody,
forced him to sign a consent form, took the body from the funeral home where
it was being held until the family could arrange his burial. The Chief in
his home District said he would not allow Gift to be buried there, so the
family was arranging for the funeral to be held in Glen View.
Now if you want to touch a sensitive part of African culture – mess with a
funeral. This is a ceremony that has great significance in our culture and
tradition. It is very important to have a decent burial with all the
required rites and families go to great lengths to pay for such arrangements
and attending funerals takes up a lot of everybody’s time in Zimbabwe. So to
take the body, illegally and without the permission of the wife and rush to
bury it in an unmarked grave away from the public eye without the required
ceremony, is a very serious cultural slur. When you do this you touch the
very soul of Africa.
That meant nothing to the Mugabe regime – they just did it and to hell with
the consequences. The reason? To avoid what would have been a very
embarrassing public display of grief and anger at the actions of the State
last Sunday.
When we tried to get the most seriously injured people to hospital in South
Africa, they were greeted at the airport – on the actual apron next to the
aircraft set aside to fly them to Johannesburg, by a team of armed Police
who proceeded to deny them the right to leave the country (their travel
documents were all in order) and they were then forced to return to the
Hospital in Harare where they are now under Police guard.
It would appear there is, in addition to an informal curfew in all urban
high-density townships and the formal ban on all political gatherings, a ban
on the opposition leaving the country – for any purpose.
Just this morning Nelson Chamisa was on his way to the airport to catch a
plane to Europe to attend a EU/ACP meeting when his vehicle was stopped by
people in plain clothes, he was beaten and severely injured and his personal
possessions, including his lap top computer were taken. He is now in high
care in hospital with a cracked skull and eye injuries. No doubt this regime
will allege this was a criminal attack, but I do not think anyone need be
deceived by that – this was the work of the CIO in every way. Of course it
was a criminal act – everything this regime does is criminal in that sense!
Then there are the actions of the Mad Hatter himself. His response to the
international outcry over these savage and mindless attacks? He takes to the
podium at the Party Headquarters – with a selected audience of Party
loyalists, to attack the international diplomatic community in Harare saying
that if they do not behave themselves they will be kicked out of the
country. He went on the blame the situation on the MDC – claiming that we
were the perpetrators and that violence would not be tolerated!! Well I
guess that attack is the best form of defence!
Everyone is asking – is this the start of the end? Well I am sure it is and
so are many others. Mr. Mugabe is 83 and aging fast; his support base is
slipping away from him even faster. Increasingly isolated he has just
suffered his first defeat inside Zanu Pf in 27 years. We in the MDC gave him
his first taste of defeat in 2000. He could retaliate against us because we
were pretty defenseless and had few friends. But this time it was his own
Party that dealt him a blow.
Many are concentrating on the violent attacks on our leadership as being the
main news, but for me the really big news is that Zanu PF and the region
said no to 2010. Mugabe must now complete his term, earned fraudulently in
2002, retire as President in March 2008 and worse still, ask his own Party
if he can stand again. I can already sense the humiliation of that moment
because I am certain, he would not be nominated and, for Mugabe, that would
be the ultimate humiliation.
We in the opposition must keep on with the struggle as the final outcome is
still far from certain and those with power in the region are not friends.
They have an agenda and I could not agree more with the Mail and Guardian,
that it was time South Africa stopped meddling in our affairs. For once,
stop trying to determine our future, the people know what is best for them -
let them decide, is that so hard to accept? It is for some, because they
already know the outcome.
As for the Mad Hatter and his associates, it is time they faced reality and
accepted that if we are going to find our way back to the road, we have no
alternative as a country but to accept that it must be on the basis of a
leadership that is voted in by the great majority of our people. A
leadership with a genuine democratic mandate to do what is necessary to
repair our countries broken body.
That is not going to be easy or painless – it will require both medicine and
surgery, but we have been there before and we can do it again. Only this
time make sure that the new society we create will meet our expectations and
our potential. We owe that to ourselves.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 18th March 2007
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Stumble It!
March 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Zvakwana,
Apologies for my lack of informed perspective about Zimbabwe; however —
Can you shed any light on how a country so promising, so rich in natural and human resources, once a revolutionary beacon in the liberation movement in post-colinialist Africa …
has come to this tragic state of affairs?
My first awareness of Zimbabwe was delivered through the reggae music of Bob Marley. He was celebrating in song a newly independent and re-named part of Mother Africa.
Is it simply that Mugabe is a supreme thug, with an effective apparatus for repression?
With a 1700% inflation rate, how can the state have any leverage left to coerce citizens to support the regime?
Is it now a pervasive atmosphere of fear, and an immobilizing sense of dread?
Mugabe is mortal and old.
When the personal terrorism he has waged rots with his corpse, is there a way forward for Zimbabwe?
March 19th, 2007 at 8:17 am
In response to DadWithGirls, thank you for your interest. The only problem I have in response it that there are so many reasons and issues but I’ll do my best to be as brief as possible.
Yes, Mugabe certainly did take over a resource rich country which had (still has) so much promise. In fact, at the outset, he was given valuable advice from the likes of Samora Machel (Mozambique) and Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), both of whom had driven their own countries into dire poverty with social experiments. So despite a war, the country Mugabe inherited had been extremely well managed, despite full-blown sanctions.
It is often said that Mugabe is a Marxist. I do no believe this. I think that what he saw in Marxism was a blueprint to stay in power forever. There is a crystal clear difference between say, South Korea/Australia/USA/Canada/Sweden and many African countries. So many African countries operate on the basis that politics dictates economics. Whilst most western countries operate on the basis that economics dictates politics. This in part explains why such a resource rich continent is so poverty stricken.
The exponential economic meltdown in Zimbabwe is largely as a result of the political imperative to retain power taking precedence over monitory or any other factor. The ruling party has placed it’s supporters throughout all organs of state to the point where the ruling party and state have become indistinguishable. A blind eye is turned on corruption, even encouraged, and many party members become richer than their wildest dreams as they plunder the country’s assets unhindered. So whilst Mugabe’s cronies have become extremely wealthy, they know that this wealth could be taken away if they fail to be 100% loyal to the party (ala Mugabe). This has bred loyalty to the point of absurdity. For example, the agricultural minister announcing such things as bumper harvests when everyone knows that very few crops have been planted. Their excuse for no yields is drought. However, all the irrigation dams are full of water. Nothing they say can be believed and they are so paranoid that they believe their own lies.
Over the first 20 years of Mugabe’s rule, he gradually got more and more power either legislatively or by brute force. During the early 80’s he oversaw the slaughter of some 20 – 30,000 Matebele’s using his North Korean trained 5th Brigade. Whilst this was going on, the rest of the world turned a blind eye and saw Mugabe as Africa’s great hope. The Matebele people’s political support was for zapu, not Mugabe’s zanu. Mugabe forced zapu to integrate with zanu or the killing would continue. Joshua Nkomo, leader of zapu, had no option but to comply and the killing stopped.
In 2000, elections were held to adopt a new constitution. Had Mugabe won, he would have consolidated his position as a de facto one party state. It was at this time that a number of concerned union and civic groups finally saw the writing on the wall and formed a political party called The Movement for Democratic Change. They entered the election calling for a “No” vote and won. This shocked Mugabe to the core as he knew that if he lost power, he would be exposed to charges of genocide. As a result of this loss of support, Mugabe recognised a serious problem in commercial farming areas where there was a very large electorate which he couldn’t “get at”. So he played an emotional card he had been holding back for 20 years – land redistribution. Using land redistribution as a pretext, he used the military to oversee a violent mass theft of freehold land. While the rest of the world concentrated their attention on the plight of white farmers, over a million black workers and their families lost their homes and livelihoods. These poor souls were chased away with nowhere to live. Many just gather their possessions and lived on the roadside. The rest is history and since then, he has literally militarised all state organs and destroyed the means of production and it’s infrastructure.
So at the end of the day, it’s all about retention of power. It is obvious that his intention is to die in office. The already high inflation that you mention is predicted to reach much higher levels this year (4000 – 5000%). Who knows what it reach because he continually prints more money and takes zeroes off whenever the cash registers can’t handle them.
I have studied Mugabe for some 30 odd years. His demeanor indicates to me that he knows he is now fighting for his life, both within zanupf and with the population of Zimbabwe. He is renowned for his violence and in the end, he will be shoved out but there will be plenty of blood on the floor in the process. Make no mistake about it, revolution is in the air in Zimbabwe.
There is a lot of planning going on in preparation for a post Mugabe era. An inventory of skills and expertise has been compiled in the diaspora. The problem is that the longer it is left, the worse become the prospects. If it get worse, and I expect it to, South Africa and other countries will reap the whirlwind of refugees. I guess that South Africa already has 4-4.5 million Zimbabwe refugees. This number grows by the day because the floodgates have opened and people are desperate.
The short term looks bad and the one country which could change things, South Africa, has played a very supportive role for Mugabe. That is why Mugabe can do whatever he likes, with impunity.
The long term prospects may be a little better, who knows.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Zvakwana,
Well, this thread is now probably buried deep into the back pages and clicks of this blog.
I don’t mean that as a criticism of Mike’s excellent MND forum; however, once a thread gets a couple days old, it’s ancient history.
Well, as you’re no doubt aware, Americans have very short attention spans.
That said, I very much appreciated your excellent concise history of post-colonialist Zimbabwe.
You might be amused to know that I met and spent an entire day with
Samora Machel during his visit to Grenada in 1981. I have photos of him with Maurice Bishop as we traveled the island for most of a day.
Machel gave a fantastic speech to the people of Grenada at a rally for African Liberation Day, and he was really funny! The Chris Rock of bad revolutionaries….
Well, in a diabolically political way.
He concluded his remarks with “La Lucha Continua!” of course.
Not so long after this visit to Spice Island, he was misteriously murdered in a plane crash, as I recall.
Well, perhaps the diaspora includes a few homesick white boys?
Again, thank you for the precise and educational value of your post.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
So, now it’s pretty apparent….
Everything you post is part of “Hot Talk?”
I wish I was flattered.
Is there an “abstain” option?
For the demure crowd at MND?
The wanna-be-wallflowers?
The former members of the ANC?
March 21st, 2007 at 12:53 am
A psychopathic thug surrounded by sycophants getting fat off corruption, praised by Marxist Dictators and foreign, racist lefties, protected by North Korean murderers on holiday and ignored by black Africans who ‘threw off the white yoke’. A recipe for disaster for the ordinary homeless family man and woman on the streets of Harare.
And the UN sits on its collective, marxist arse. And ‘pre-emptive’ action by any western country is abhored.